Trump warns Iran blockade could last months, sending oil soaring

The UN Development Programme warned that the war, which has also seen the price of fertiliser soaring, could plunge more than 30 million people into poverty in 160 countries. 

“It’s development in reverse,” UNDP chief Alexander De Croo told AFP.

Despite the defiance of the cleric-run state, the Iranian rial fell to historic lows against the dollar.

Tehran residents speaking to AFP journalists in Paris reported a sense of despair.

“Every time in recent years that negotiations have taken place, the economic situation of the people has only gotten worse. Sanctions have either started or intensified,” a 52-year-old architect told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.  

“They go to negotiate and come back with even more sanctions, and the issue is always nuclear. There’s no talk about people, the economy or freedom. People have the right to not even want to hear the word ‘negotiation’,” he said.

“COLLAPSE”

Iran has proposed easing its chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz as Washington lifts its blockade and broader negotiations take place. The Trump administration has viewed the proposal sceptically.

Iran’s speaker of parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has emerged as a key figure since the start of the war, said on Wednesday the US naval blockade of the country aimed to create division and “make us collapse from within.”

Violence has continued on the war’s Lebanese front, despite a recently extended ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed armed group that drew Lebanon into the war by firing rockets at Israel. Israel responded with strikes and a ground invasion.

For the first time since the ceasefire began, the Lebanese army said on Tuesday that an Israeli strike had targeted its troops, wounding two soldiers in the south. Another strike on Wednesday killed a Lebanese soldier, it said.

“Israel must finally realise that the only path to security is through negotiations, but it must first fully implement the ceasefire in order to move on to negotiations,” “Israeli attacks cannot continue as they are,” Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said in a statement.

A UN-backed report said on Wednesday that more than 1.2 million people in Lebanon were expected to face acute hunger due to the latest war.